Hostess of the Week: 'So I Thought, Why Not Get a Goat?'

ESQUIRE: I hear the river's pretty big down in Austin and around that area. Drinking and floating down the river for hours.

HANNAH MARY MARSHALL: It depends on which river you pick, too. One of them goes for six hours.

ESQ: That's a very passive form of traveling.

HMM: It's important to get enough beer, yeah.

ESQ: Lone Star?

HMM: People do think Lone Star is a thing. And I don't know if this is true, but I heard that it's not actually made in Texas.

ESQ: That's very un-Texas.

HMM: I think Shiner is the actual Texas beer.

ESQ: So what brought you to Austin?

HMM: Well, I've lived in a few other places in between, but I just missed Texas so much, and I have a lot of friends living in Austin. And I decided to study nutrition at Texas State. I'm getting my Registered Dietitian's license.

ESQ:Why nutrition?

HMM: I was pre-med, and I really love science. Then I found out that you can combine food and science, and that was pretty much the pinnacle of amazing for me.

ESQ: Do you apply any of that knowledge at Congress?

HMM: I actually have to try hard not to apply it, I would say. When people make reservations, I always ask if they have any allergies. People say they have allergies to crazy stuff that I know, scientifically, you cannot possibly have an allergy to. This one woman said she was allergic to raw fish, but not cooked fish.

ESQ: Really?

HMM: Yeah.

ESQ: People with their allergies these days.

HMM: Soy sauce — the same woman said she was allergic to soy sauce, but no other kind of soy.

ESQ: So being allergic must be a synonym for simply not liking something. Can you tell when someone walks through the door if they're not from around town?

HMM: Not always. It depends. Because at Congress, pretty much everyone's really friendly. But I've worked places where, if someone's really rude, I doubt that their origins...

ESQ: They're not from Texas.

HMM: I don't think they're a true Texan if they're really rude.

ESQ: Craziest thing that's happened to you at work?

HMM: I guess, aside from this?

ESQ: Like, say, if somebody vomited on the hostess stand...

HMM: Um, we get a lot of drunk people. But no one throwing up on me, thankfully. But the picture that my boss sent y'all is of me in this tutu dress. And I'd worn this tutu dress to work like three or four times. It's my favorite dress, and when people call to make a reservation, some will say, "Hey, are you the one that wears the tutu dress?" Or they'll come in, and if they've seen me in it before, they'll ask me where it is, or why I'm not wearing it.

ESQ:It is a tutu dress. It's very memorable.

HMM: Yeah, but it's a little silly.

ESQ:You're really starting a good trend here.

HMM: I've actually been encouraged to express myself through my clothing. People have asked if it's my uniform when I wear it.

ESQ:That would be a great restaurant, if everybody had to wear a tutu dress. Or disturbing. You know, one of those two.

HMM: It provides a hazard in between tables that are kind of close together, but other than that...

ESQ: You're holding a book in your picture. What book is that?

HMM: It's Safe Food, by Marion Nestle. She's a famous food scientist. It's about all kinds of things, but mostly it's about bacteria in food.

ESQ: We're getting a good deal right now. We're not only interviewing the Hostess of the Week, but we're prying some food-science expertise from you. Tell us one thing we don't know about the science of food.

HMM: My most recent, surprising discovery is that the worst cereal for you is Cap'n Crunch.

ESQ: Wow.

HMM: Yeah.

ESQ: They've figured that out?

HMM: With the sugar content and carbohydrates: Cap'n Crunch. Even worse for you than Lucky Charms.

ESQ: How do you relax outside of work?

HMM: Besides studying? That's not very relaxing. I have chickens, and a goat. I play with them a lot.

ESQ: Holy hell.

HMM: I'm doing really well at killing the farming reputation of Texas.

ESQ: What compels you to have chickens and goats?

HMM: I started off wanting to get chickens, and I really love goat cheese. And so I thought, Why not get a goat and make my own goat cheese?

ESQ:My God. You make your own goat cheese?

HMM: I can't yet. She's not quite of breeding age. But in a couple months, I'll be ready.

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